


Luzhin i Dunya

by funkandwag



Category: Eastern Promises (2007)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-27
Updated: 2013-07-27
Packaged: 2017-12-21 13:11:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/900700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/funkandwag/pseuds/funkandwag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the police finally got their hands on the baby, things started going by very quickly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Luzhin i Dunya

When the police finally got their hands on the baby, things started going by very quickly. Two hours after the blood was tested and inevitable matched with Semyon’s, the police were at the restaurant, making a fuss, upsetting the children, and putting the old man in handcuffs. Solicitors were called, witnesses (drawn to attest to his character and the girl’s age) found, an open and shut  trial, a guilty sentence long enough that, although no one said so to Kirill, meant Semyon was going to die a convict.

Kirill made some noise about custody, for the sake of blood ties; Kolya fixed with a look and talk of weakness and what do you want with a squalling brat and your father didn’t even want it-

(Without him even asking, Yuri promised a watch would be set; Luzhin would leave it at that. It didn’t pay to be sentimental in a business like this.)

Rumblings came from down below: arrests were up and so were convictions. However, that was to be expected; with every change of the guard, there always existed a moment of danger, when there were no guards and the guarded thing was open to theft. Instability was to be expected.

(Semyonovich’s men, with or without starred knees: Not for the other families, though. Not for them. Their arrests and their convictions weren’t up. God, the only injuries they suffered came from a lack of competition; God, if only we could have such injuries.)

A year passed. Nothing got worse, nothing got better, the instability remained. What had been rumblings became whispers became speech, poison dripping into Kirill’s ears, Kolya’s assurances a hasty antidote. But the poison had already seeped in, had already begun to make his brain bubble with suspicion and rot with fear.

(If a man like Papa could be taken, why not a man like him?)

Kirill wandered farther and farther away from the restaurant; ‘Where Has Semyonovich Gone’ became a guessing game that Luzhin lost to others more often than not and it carved out a hollow in his chest. He did not know what to make of it except this: there had to be an end to this dynasty, and soon.

(The police came for Semyonovich once, for ‘routine questioning’, but he wasn’t there. Neither was Luzhin, which concerned them more.)

“They’re looking for you. “

“I already told them what-”

“The police, I mean.”

“...Oh.” A flash of fear, then abruptly back to bravado. “Well, do you have the tickets ready?”

And suddenly Kolya’s hand was cradling his neck, thumb brushing his jaw like it had done so many times before (so often it practically rubbed a groove into the bone) and Kolya’s mouth bent to his ear and Kolya’s tongue pronounced these words: “Kirill, your stars are birthmarks; mine are mere paint.”

(And the kingdom was lost; when he came to, he was shaved bald as an egg and he had agreed to snitch in exchange for a limited sort of freedom.)

“You’re getting to be a coward,” he told him, sitting a bench away in Hyde Park, staring at, but not seeing, the ducks.

Before, that would have gotten him killed. Before, their positions had been too unequal (Kirill’s too insecure and Kolya’s too low) for there to be any out-and-out rows; little humiliations (from Kirill) and little jabs (from Kolya) were all they had ever amounted to. But again, that was before. Now, Kolya had become Nikolai Luzhin, FSB agent, and Kirill Semyonovich was a government informant and had become nameless.

Tattooless, too; under whose knife, no one could say.

“Better a living coward than a dead hero.”

“I’d never accuse you of heroism.”

“Good.”


End file.
